Piano-playing-controlling device.



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PIANO PLAYING CONTROLLING DEVICE.

APPLICATION FILED JUNE6,1912.

1 ()56 984 Patented Mar. 25, 1913 lnven+oh UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

ROBERT A. GALLY, 0F CINCINNATI, OHIO, ASSIGNOR TO THE BALDWIN COMPANY, OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

IIANO-ILAYING-CONTROLLING DEVICE.

Patented Mar. 25, 1913.

Application filed June 6, 1912. Serial No. 702,009.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ROBERT A. GALLY, a citizen of the United States, residing at Cincinnati, in the county of Hamilton, State of Ohio, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Piano-Playing-Controlling Devices, of which the following is a specification.

Former arrangements of control handles and buttons in player pianos and the like have required the cutting or disfiguring of the front of the case near the keys or use of complicated housings, also the disturbing of connections or adjustments when separating the case parts.

The present invention condenses all the control handles and buttons in the keyslip, and permits the removal of the keyslip with the buttons without disturbance of the regulating, or connections.

In the accompanying drawings Figure 1 is a front view, partly sectional, of the fall board, keyslip and keybed, and the expression buttons and handle; Fig. 2 is cross-section of same from the left (bass) end, including the keys; and Fig. 3 is an end view of the keyslip raised from the keybed with an expression button and its push wire and rod all carried complete with the keyslip.

The keyslip 1 is detachably fastened to the keybed 2 in the usual manner of piano cases. In the keyslip 1 are bored holes 3 having their upper parts 1 enlarged to receive the expression buttons 5. The tops of the large holes 4 are preferably countersunk as at 6 to allow a low position of the buttons 5 in the top of the keyslip 1 and yet secure a motion from the pressure of the fingers. The button 5 is screwed on the threaded top end of the wire 7 to the lower end of which wire a wooden rod 8 is screwed. The smaller part of hole 3 in key slip 1 is amply larger than wire 7 to allow safe clearance of the wire, and the hole 9 in keybed 2 is well free of rod 8, but rod Sand its washer 10 at its top, are too large to pass up into hole 3 in keyslip 1, so that when the keyslip 1 is lifted from the keybed 2 as in Fig. 3, the button 5 with its wire 7 and rod 8 are carried by the keyslip 1 without any chance of their being lost or disarranged. When replacing the keyslip 1 on the keybed 2, the countersink 11 of the hole 9 enables the easy return of rods 8 to the holes 9.

The bottom ends of rods 8 rest on the connections that operate the expression or other controls of the instrument, as the spring valve 12 which opens and closes the air to any pneumatic device, as a loud pedal pneumatic, or on a mechanical device, as the rocker 13 of shaft 141. The shaft 14: has a lever or rocker 13 across it, and is operated by rods 15 and 16 and expression buttons 17 and 18. hen one button is depressed the downward action of its rod on rocker 13 causes the other end of the rocker to rise and thus raise the other button, and vice versa. Thus these two buttons act together in lieu of the old fashioned tipping tablet,

but in more compact form and improved appearance.

\Vhere the amount of throw of the buttons requires their standing at a greater height than will allow their tops to clear the cover or fall-board 19 when that board is closed down, a recess 20 is made in the under edge of the fall-board 19 immediately over such buttons 17 and 18 in Fig. 1.

A folding tempo-handle 21 is shown folded down into a chamber 22 in keyslip 1., the chamber 22 having suflicient opening through the bottom of the keyslip 1 so that the keyslip may be drawn up from the keybed 2 without removing the handle. Details of folding handle are not claimed herein, being claimed in appropriate separate applications.

What I claim as my invention, is

1. In a player-piano: a keyslip and keybed, control buttons contained in the top of said keyslip, rods standing below said keyslip, wires attached to each button and its rod, holes in said keybed in which the rods hang, and control elements underneath said keybed and directly under said rods.

2. In a player-pianoz a keybed and keyslip, two control buttons in the top of said keyslip,.a vertical push-means from each said button to the bottom of the keybed, and a shaft and rocker at the under part of the keybed, the vertical connection of each button bearing on the top of its one end of the rocker.

3. In a player-piano: a keybed and keyslip, said keyslip mounted above and on said keybed, two vertically acting control buttons on the top of said keyslip, a shaft with a rocker thereto mounted under said keybed and having the two ends of the 10 keybed and extending above said keybed,

and a chamber vertically through said keyslip to contain said control handle, said keyslip being attachable and detachable from said keybed Without disturbing the handle from the keybed or the buttons from the keyslip.

ROBT. A. GALLY. lVitnesses S. M. AMAOKS, M. EvERs.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents, 

